


Been Praying for Hours

by andwhatyousaid



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, And Maybe Crisis, F/F, First Kiss, Lit Analysis, Professor Lister, Queer Lit, Sexual Identity discovery, Sexual Tension, Virginia Woolf?, long conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:06:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27754294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andwhatyousaid/pseuds/andwhatyousaid
Summary: Ann visits Professor Lister during office hours to discuss a recent paper for herQueer Bonds: Mid-Century Literaturecourse.
Relationships: Anne Lister (1791-1840)/Ann Walker (1803-1854)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 58





	Been Praying for Hours

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while back, after initially marathoning this brilliant show, and then forgot about it; after re-discovering my fondness, decided wine not post after all! Entirely, utterly self-indulgent, more than usual, but posting in the hopes that someone derives some joy out of this. Total AU, pls see tags for context. Thank you massively to anyone who chooses to read. Title sourced from "Pussy is God" by King Princess.

In the quiet of Anne's office, there's a quick, gentle rap on the door, though Anne imagined she had left it open; she stills from sorting through a stack of student papers on her desk to glance over at the door. 

Walker is standing in the threshold, one hand still raised to knock, the other crossed over her text book, hugging it to her chest. Today, she’s pinned her hair away from her face, and Anne never noticed in all the times she’s seen Walker in the lecture hall, but Walker’s eyes, with her face bright and open like this, look very blue.

Anne clears her throat, sets her reading glasses on her desk and turns to look at her. "Yes?" She raises one eyebrow. 

“Oh,” says Walker, and then startles, as if that isn’t how she meant to begin. “I was wondering, Professor Lister, if I could review the last assignment with you.” Her eyebrows furrow gently in the middle of her forehead as if she’s imagining something, holding it at the center of her mind and paging through it, carefully, before she speaks. “I’m not sure I understand your response to my paper.”

“Mariana’s response to your paper,” Anne corrects, remembering the TA in question, but she clears aging copies of Virginia Woolf’s _Mrs Dalloway_ , Nella Larson’s _Passing_ , Audre Lorde’s _Uses of the Erotic_ , and the like to make space at the chair sometimes reserved for her students and sometimes reserved for hoards of texts and syllabi and calendars and drafts of policy reform proposals for the Department. 

She gestures at the open seat, but doesn’t turn to see if Walker will take it, instead swiveling in her chair to close her University email and pull up the syllabus for _Queer Bonds: Mid-Century Literature_. “Tell me,” says Anne, once she has the document open, “What are your concerns?” 

She glances over then, just to be sure Walker has taken the seat, which she has, folding herself neatly into the large, overly plush chair; Anne had dragged that chair out of a yard sale and re-upholstered it herself when she first got this office. Something about Walker sat there, her hair sharply blonde, overly bright against the dark and roguish leather, her blouse tucked neatly into her high-waisted jeans, her collar closed around her throat, makes Anne hesitate, stuttering over the contrast. 

Walker’s eyes catch hers, and Anne breathes in deeply, unable to look away, heat pulling at the center of her belly. She forces herself to raise her eyebrows, pointed, a follow-up to her lingering question, and Walker’s face colors, pinking up, as if she has only just realized how much time has lapsed. 

“I’m not sure I understand…” Walker trails off, tucking her hair behind her ear, looking down at her lap. 

“Go on,” says Anne, leaning forward. She tries to soften her body language —she knows how she can come off —tilting her face to show she’s listening, eyes trained onto Walker to offer undivided attention, as she would for any student. Walker holds her eye contact but hesitates. 

“Jump into it,” says Anne. “Begin wherever you can.” 

That opens Walker right up; she bursts out with: “What did the prompt mean by ‘subverting tropes’ exactly? I thought I had written quite accurately on that, but see, you —I mean, _Mariana_ wrote that I had only reinforced the _conforming and norming_ in the text.” She jostles with her bag, tugging it open and rummaging through until she pulls out the paper in question, stapled and dog-eared at the corner. She offers it to Anne across the desk. 

Anne accepts it, a bemused smile curling at the corner of her mouth.

“If you read there, on the final page,” Walker says, and Anne compiles, folding the pages back until she’s at the last one, raising an eyebrow once more, inquiring. 

Walker’s face has gone pink again, but she continues, clearing her throat. “On the final page, in my conclusion, I write that the joy in Woolf’s language throughout _Orlando_ is what _is_ subversive, in and of itself. Maybe I did not express that clearly enough, but I thought —I thought in your lecture when you spoke about —”

“Yes,” says Anne, looking back up at her now, holding the pages still in one hand, “Yes, when I spoke about the reception of the text, and still, now, how little we think of it in comparison to Woolf’s other, more popular works.” She sets the paper down, and leans back in her chair, which squeaks semi-obnoxiously in response, so she bookmarks it in the back of her mind as a soon-to-be made repair. “Tell me,” she says, finding the thread of their conversation again. “What did you make of yesterday’s lecture, regarding the actual love letters between Vita and Virginia?” 

“Oh,” says Walker —different from how she had sounded when she first walked in; more like she's stumbling across something unexpected and foreign. “Well, _that_. That, was touching, and aching, and horribly painful.” 

“Painful?” says Anne, biting into the word, curious. “Do go on.” 

+

Anne sets about brewing a pot of coffee in the drip-machine on her corner bookshelf that functions partly as a desk in the back of her office, if she arranges her things among its surface correctly; she’s kept the old drip-machine for late nights and these types of emergencies.

They’ll have to take the coffee black, nowhere to store creamer, though there is some sugar and she rustles up a pair of mismatched mugs from a bottom drawer in her desk; Walker doesn’t seem to mind, accepts the chipped but clean mug with an absent-minded, “Oh, yes, thank you,” glancing up gratefully at Anne, who feels her own mouth move, tugging at the corner as if wanting to smirk; she nods instead, and then makes a gesture for Walker to continue.

Walker is distracted with her own thoughts about Virginia and Vita’s utter, abject longing, anyway, so she picks right up, and soon, Anne is too, until eventually she breaks through Walker’s stumbling but grimly acute argument over the tragedy of it, unable to still her own tongue, bursting out with: “Is there no relief, no pleasure, in the fact that they have had each other at all? Why must our queer narratives speak down to, disvalue the act of being wanted, of waiting, of tension? Why must we cloak it in shame? Is there not something delicious about the unknown, about the risk? Of desiring to consume someone, something so wholly and yet being unable?”

Walker pauses at that, touching her cheek, her eyebrows folding together again. “Doesn’t it hurt?” She asks, and she looks hurt now, at the mere suggestion of it; she touches over her heart, her hand on the left side of her chest, her fingers fumbling in delicate ruffles of her shirt below her collar. “Not having what you want? Of —being afraid of it?” 

“It can,” says Anne, as though this is something she has considered for some time rather than an idea breaking upon her now, stumbling into the realization at the same moment she says it: “But is that not part of the process, the story, the feeling of it? Is that not what makes it so satisfying to have?” 

“I —suppose,” says Walker, looking down at the paper in her lap now; she had been referencing it for her notes, her thoughts. But Anne knows they have gone astray, nothing there will help her with what she believes about this. 

“Don’t try to think so hard,” says Anne. “Tell me, what’s in here,” she clasps a hand over her own belly to demonstrate, low, her thumb at her bellybutton. “Your intuition, your gut. What does it tell you?” 

“I —” Walker says, looking up at Anne now. There is heat in her eyes, something sharp, glinting. “I _don’t_ believe that. I don’t think it is always worth the risk; I don’t think it’s very fair to ask people to give up —what, assurance, or safety, or security in exchange for —for what exactly?” 

“Desire,” Anne answers, without missing a beat, but she looks away because she knows she is watching too closely now, and turns toward her desk, beginning to straighten up. “Anyway,” she says, absently, without looking at Walker, instead placing a fallen text back into her bookshelf, moving un-graded papers to a folder she can clasp shut, winding the thread around the button to keep it closed; she may as well plan to go home, no need to pretend her mind won’t be elsewhere if she stays here. “That is the place I’m asking you to write from. Write from that point of passion, whatever the argument.” 

After she finishes, she figures it’s safe to turn around, so she does, but Walker has risen from the overly plush leather chair and moved closer, now behind Anne and at the end of her desk, leaning up against it with one hand, and it isn’t safe at all —Walker has a peculiar look on her face, as if discovering something for the first time. Her fingers are running over the curved, grained wood of Anne’s desk, carefully.

“I don’t think I’ve felt that,” she says, and at Anne’s inquiring look, she explains: “Desire.” 

Anne breathes out hard through her nose, trapping her mouth shut for a moment, stifling a response. “Walker. _Ann_ ,” she says, tone firm, the name feeling foreign and overly familiar on her tongue all the same. “I am sure you will have ample opportunity to explore that.” The unspoken _‘elsewhere’_ lingers between them. Anne raises her eyebrow, just in case it’s missed.

Walker flushes at that, going pink again, shrinking back: “Of course,” stuttering a bit. “I —didn’t mean to imply that—”

“Of course you did,” says Anne, instantly, before she can help herself. “I can hardly blame you.” She feels the smirk tugging at her mouth again, asking to be let loose. If only Walker wouldn’t, then Anne wouldn’t _have_ to —

Walker takes a shuddering breath in: “It’s just that —you. You have a certain, um.” Her eyes don’t move from Anne’s face. “I’ve always thought,” she says, more quietly, near a whisper. 

Anne reaches out to trace the side of Walker’s cheek, wistful, fascinated by the way that Walker closes her eyes, nearly flinching at it and leaning into her touch simultaneously. “Then I am sure you weren’t being wholly honest before.” 

Anne has never much seen the point of stalling what she knows she will inevitably do: she leans toward Walker until there’s a breath between them and whispers, just as quietly as Walker had, “I think you know exactly what desire feels like, what it compels.” 

What she doesn’t account for is Walker surging forward to kiss her, messy and wet, and _again_ when Anne sharply pulls back, clutching at Anne’s shoulders, letting loose a tiny hint of a moan caught on a sigh. 

Anne manages to grasp Walker’s shoulders and hold her arm’s length.

“God,” Walker’s saying, mortified and desperate, squeezing her eyes shut as if unable to bear Anne’s reaction. “I am so, _so_ sorry. Please don’t —don’t expel me. I, I don’t know what came over me, oh.” She’s covering her face with her hands now, but Anne can make out her muffled voice: “Oh, this is horrible. I will never forgive myself, I am _so_ sorry, Professor.” 

Anne can only blame Walker’s blatant self-flagellation for the urge that balls up hot and tight in her belly, like a stove burner kicking on, flames blooming to life. “You should _never_ be sorry for your feelings.” She softens her hold, one hand holding the back of Walker’s shoulder as if keeping her in, and the other smoothing her hair, tucking a stray strand behind her ear. 

Walker brings her hands just down her face so that her eyes are visible. They aren’t misty with tears, though they are wide-open with shock. “No, I think that was _horribly_ ill-advised.” 

“That could be said for a lot of behaviors that we shame and demonize, and yet, ultimately, are perhaps morally gray or amoral, meaning there is no evaluation to be made of their positive or negative impact,” says Anne, shrugging as if dismissing an annoying but harmless nat. She helps Walker pulls her hands away from her face and says, “Come now,” squeezing Walker’s hands in hers, ignoring the electric current that jolts through her at the contact, ignoring Walker’s gasp, as if she felt it too, her near flinch. "No need to despair. It can be between us." 

“Like a secret?” Walker asks. 

“I don't believe in a need for secrecy,” Anne says immediately, as if it’s helplessly drawn from her. 

“Of course you don’t,” says Walker, almost smiling now. “Why does that not surprise me?” She squeezes Anne’s hands back. 

“Because you understand the lectures very well,” Anne mutters —but she is —distracted, by the curve of Walker’s mouth, sweet and a bit damp from when she had surged forward, blindly into Anne, as if she knew Anne would catch her; it is hard to imagine the same person covering her face with both hands, stumbling unsure into her office, making a hesitant and consternated face at her paper only moments ago. 

“I think it’s best that I go,” says Walker, swallowing. Her face shutters closed, and she looks down, though a flush is crawling back up onto her cheeks. 

Anne lets go of her hands, offers them back to her. “Of course. I will speak with Mariana about your grade.” She opens her palm for Walker’s paper, and watches, without moving, as Walker fumbles for it from the desk and dashes her notebook and pen back into her bag, hurriedly, flustered as she hands the paper over and makes for the door. 

“I hope this has been clarifying,” Anne says, turning to watch her. “Perhaps even inspiring.” 

Walker pauses at the threshold, one hand over the frame, thumb moving minutely over the wood. “Yes, you could say that,” and she flashes a look at Anne, all heat, that makes Anne want to run to her, grasp her and push her up against the wall, gripping her hair and her waist, lifting her leg over Anne's thigh until they are locked together tight. 

But she turns to go, and Anne’s office is left empty and quiet except for the ticking of the clock above the door. “Well,” she says to herself and the vacant room, wiping a hand down her face. 

She had been so close to pushing Walker over her desk, wiping it free of contents, headless of her expensive and antique items crashing to the floor and breaking. It _is_ best Walker left when she did. So Anne doesn’t know why she has to shake her hands out and busy them to get them to quit thrumming, as if that electric current is still zinging through. 

It’s just that, she thinks, as she saves her open, in-progress documents and closes her research tabs —Walker had been right there, under Anne’s hands —literally. And Anne hadn’t stopped to really feel, to consider the silk of her shirt, the shape of those neat little buttons climbing to her throat, the soft, caressing fall of her hair against her neck. And now that Anne can’t study her like a painting, her mind is desperate to recall the detail.

She closes her office except for the blinds hanging over the window, leaving them open in slits so that the lingering sunlight patterns the floor, dappling over her feet as she moves to the door, reaching for the light switch. 

There’s the thundering noise of footsteps before Anne hears, “Professor Lister,” and Walker re-appears, careening through the doorway, gripping the frame to catch herself. “I forgot,” she says, breathing hard, as if she had run up the three flights of stairs to Anne’s office, flushed from it, her shirt damp at the collar, her hair coming undone and clinging to her forehead. 

So Anne can hardly be blamed for throwing her bag to the floor and reaching for Walker with both hands, drawing her in, and kissing her hard.

Walker makes a muffled noise of surprise, but Anne feels her hands scrambling at her back, then gripping her head tight, as if needing to keep her close.

Anne pulls back and holds Walker’s face still with one hand, sweeping her thumb over her cheek, over her lips, and then she can’t take it, tightens her hand to reel her in, kiss her again, open and wet, slipping her tongue in to tease between Walker’s lips; Walker gasps at that, jerks as if pulling away, only to then surge towards Anne, fist her hand into Anne’s Oxford shirt, viciously, untucking it from Anne’s slacks, ignoring her belt. 

Anne doesn’t stop to correct her, pulling her closer with her arm wrapping around Walker’s lower back, her waist, pulling her in until their pressing together, breasts against each other, the heat of Walker’s thighs against hers, kissing her deeper and hearing her moan, feeling her hands fluttering at Anne’s lower back above her belt. Anne bites her lip, just a little, and Walker’s fingers suddenly dig into her skin, so Anne whispers into her ear, “I think you liked that.”

“Oh,” says Walker, “That isn’t fair,” gasping when Anne disregards that to trace the shell of her ear, close her teeth around the lobe; there’s the faint metallic taste of her earring, but her skin is soft everywhere, like the silk of her shirt. 

“You just surprised me,” Walker’s saying, but her voice is breathy, trapped in her chest, and her leg is creeping up Anne’s, lifting as if to wrap around her waist, seeking friction. 

“An unwelcome surprise?” Anne asks, breathing quickly, stilling except for a gentle kiss to the side of Ann’s neck. She wants to be sure.

“Heavens no,” says Walker, nudging her nose against the side of Anne’s face as if to find her mouth again. 

Anne hooks both arms under Walker’s thighs and lifts her up, encouraging Walker to wrap her legs around her waist. She turns to kick the door shut while carrying Walker to her desk, and Walker makes a series of surprised little, “Oh, oh, _oh_ ”’s, so Anne can hardly resist kissing her again then, if only to feel the sound up close, taste it. 

"Where are we—" Walker gasps against Anne's mouth. 

"Here," says Anne, muttering it as a kiss into Walker's cheek, setting her down at the edge of Anne's desk. 

"Right here?" says Walker, voice pitching higher. Her hand is clasped tight in the front of Anne's shirt, still attempting to tug it free, and Anne pauses to look at her in the half-dark, her flush and those first few buttons loose at the collar, her small shoulders, all closed in. 

“If—” says Anne, catching her breath, “I must admit, I had imagined, yes. Right here.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you can imagine precisely how this ends. 
> 
> ETA: Omg, I truly didn't expect anyone to read this, let alone want MORE. Still reeling from that. Bless everyone who has left comments stating as such, I appreciate each and every one of you absolute gems, and I will do my worst/best to make ur dreams into a reality, though no promises. ♥


End file.
